Memories of Miss Memory

sofie’s romano cheese bread

It’s rare that I get the opportunity to blog about such domestic things like baking bread but times are-a-changing. For me the change is about self-reliance, whole-food cooking, cutting out food additives, drinking clean water and sourcing local product rather than mass produced or imported goods. Starting with bread, if it’s the fabulous organic sourdough sort that we love, it is generally extraordinarily expensive, and the kind from the supermarket is sort of like eating marshmallow that tastes like bread. A quick glance at the ingredients list of most mass produced bread reveals long lists of unnecessary additives. So I prefer to make my own. It’s not as time consuming as you think and the results are just so rewarding.

sofie’s wholemeal loaf straight out of the oven

This is a tried and tested recipe and in the true spirit of a hand-me-down, it was originally sourced from my dear friend Kirsten, who got it from someone else, who in turn adapted it from a recipe from the illustrious Sullivan St Bakery in NYC.

Recipe: No-Knead Bread
November 8, 2006

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery NYC

Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Either put a lid/plate on the bowl or put the mix into of the thing you’lll bake it in. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 20 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface (baking tray is good or use the lid/plate of the bowl if you don’t want to make a mess) and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball.

Cover with cotton towel and let rise for about 2-4 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 230 degrees centigrade. Put a heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 45 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

I have also put this dough into a normal loaf tin, (grease the tin using butter or oil before putting the dough in) reduced the temperature to 210 and cooked for about 45 mins. The results are still great, and you get a more loafy shape than the pot version.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

kirsten’s notes: we do 1.5 loaves (ie 1.5 x ingedients) and its yay…. all measures of time, apart from baking, are approximate and the loaf will forgive you if you forget about it for an extra hour or two here and there…

sofie’s notes: I have found that weather plays a big part in the process, so keep in mind the temperature of the room in relation to rising time. If you are adventurous you can add extra things like romano cheese or dried fruit and cinnamon.